


Catch The Sun

by eijisjade (hazyamethyst)



Series: between the cities, between the thrills [1]
Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: (Hint: it isn't), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eiji wears his heart on his sleeve, Falling In Love, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Soft Eiji, and he's only mildly aware of it, they be chilling at 3am like it's nobody's business !!!, things get Poetic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 12:08:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19209130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazyamethyst/pseuds/eijisjade
Summary: Luckily, this can only last the few moments it takes for higher consciousness to kick in to remind you of last night’s events. Of how you’re not in your house, but it makes sense. You’re okay.Eiji, by all accounts, should be well-used to this feeling now.





	Catch The Sun

**Author's Note:**

> This series lives!! :D
> 
> So, this baby has been sitting in my fics folder for months. It seems I could never find the time to sit down and proofread it... or when I did I was too tired and not in a editing kinda mood. Glad that's done with for now!! I've got to say this one is a bit dialogue-heavy and self-indulgent because I'm someone that could write pages and pages on these two just being soft with each other. Just that. I'm a big fan.

There’s a distinct feeling to waking up disoriented someplace not too familiar. The dream-induced drowsiness is swiftly swept away the moment your eyes land on unknown furniture, or walls, then flit over the bed you’re on to notice how all the sheets and bedspread are wrong, maybe the orientation of the bed itself, too. This confusion might spur panic, surface in the form of a gasp, a racing heart, a couple of brief sharp thoughts playing on loop:

_Where am I?!  
What happened?_

Luckily, this can only last the few moments it takes for higher consciousness to kick in to remind you of last night’s events. Of how you’re not in your house, but it makes sense. You’re okay.

Eiji, by all accounts, should be well-used to this feeling now. As a competing athlete, he spent a good portion of his teenage years travelling all around Japan, mostly, but also Australia and China on occasion. Hotels changed with the scenery, the stays in each city short and successive to the point all he could grow accustomed to was the blur of airports, stadiums and streets. When left to his own devices he’d be ill at ease, deeply disoriented even with his phone repeating clear-cut directions over and over to him. In those moments, it’d truly sink. How far away he was from his family, how far caught-up in his sport he’d got and how that’s the life he’d chosen for himself with their undying support and encouragement.

Back then, it’d felt a permanent arrangement.

Gathering himself, Eiji yawns and looks for the slippers he tucked under the bed. He’s in LA, sure enough, Ibe is sleeping in the bed opposite to him and it’s too cramped and humid. Well, at least _he_ is, the heavy cotton of his pajamas sticking uncomfortably to his arms and legs. Getting out of bed slowly, one foot at the time, he rubs his eyes and takes in his surroundings. Bare yellow walls, a lone tall plant by the wardrobe and some very creaky floor he does his best to not to step on too loudly as he makes a beeline for the window near the corner and pushes it open it to let a soft breeze in. It’s not exactly safe, he’s aware, but they’d have to be really unlucky to get attacked a second time this night, right? Looking out into the absolute dark of the park the house faces, he stretches his arms up above him and bites back a groan as his back pops. They must be well into the dead of the night with how silent it is— 3:12am, his watch informs him. Enjoying the wind, he lingers a little in that spot before his dry throat demands attention and he tiredly decides to drag himself to the kitchen to grab a glass of water, then come back, close the window and resume his sleeping.

Quietly clicking his room’s door shut, Eiji steps out and begins to walk down the wide hallway. He could barely spot the stairs from afar, dimly-lit as they were, and it’s that glow he focuses on following until a sliver of closer but equally soft light lands on him. Turning to its source, he registers it’s the door to Ash’s room, left just barely ajar and bleeding luminosity into the otherwise dead dark hallway.

Almost on impulse, he raps his knuckles on the varnished oak. “Ash?”

His voice comes out awful, a hoarse half-whisper so he tries again, slightly more demanding. “Ash, it’s me. Is it okay if I come in?”

A quiet reply follows. “Make sure to leave the door like it was.”

Eiji isn’t sure what possesses him to check in on Ash like this, at this hour. It’s well past midnight and it feels a lot like sneaking out with how careful he’s being not to make any noise. Politeness doesn’t really cut it, does it? Chances are Ash thinks him a bother, small, not actually worth the effort to take some definite action against. Odd, still, how Eiji understands; how the mere act of entering someone else’s bedroom brings him back to when he was on tour and, occasionally, he’d get late night visits from fellow girl athletes. Burly and strong they stood at his door, confident in their skimpy babydolls, speaking choppy English as they rushed through rehearsed lines that still managed to make him go all red and shy. He’d snap out of it, kind of, by the time they suggested coming inside _‘to have a good time’_. Fighting through the feeling of being knocked sideways, he’d start sputtering some nonsense about his coach being in there with him, apologizing with a bow, and shutting the door in a panic. Looking back, he’s infinitely ashamed because, really, everybody did it and it wasn’t that big a deal as he was made to believe.

It was what got him nervous the most, the idea of breaking the rules. Of being caught doing something he shouldn’t and have all of his hard work made void, amounting to nothing in the end. His dream, snatched away from him. Forever irretrievable.

Funny how that turned out.

And funnier, still, how it doesn’t matter all that much to him anymore.

No, that past life of his could go up in flames and fade for all he cared. Right now, he’s just anxious to reach out to Ash and make sure he’s not being attacked or in danger— not like he’d be of much help if he wasn’t, he notes, with a hint of annoyance. There’s this something, too, all at once gawking and pulling sharply, like hook caught deep in his chest, more a _need_ than a duty. A need to keep Ash company after everything that went down in Cape Cod.

It was there, the first time he’d seen the other boy visibly rattled and outwardly conflicted, during their forced, hurried exit. For a moment, Eiji really thought he wouldn’t reach the van in time, like he wouldn’t make that jump and instead sprint back, again, to the place that haunted him so, walk through the same doorway that marked once abandonment, utter, more than a little kid could ever comprehend less so have to endure.  Eiji couldn’t reconcile an impromptu _‘you’ve my blessing’_  to the crude slurs of _‘whore’_ , dismissals of _‘you shouldn’t be here’_ , feeble justifications like _‘make them pay up for it’_. It was hard to make sense of it, as it was, and he’d only had but a glimpse into Ash’s family and past.

“So?” Ash waves a hand at him, expectant. “I don’t think you came all this way to stare at my face in silence. Plenty of time to do that during the daytime.”

“Oh I- ” Eiji murmurs, a little lost. The first thing he notices is that he’s sat down on the side of Ash’s bed; the second is that, if the sting of his crusty eyes is to be trusted, he was in fact staring long and hard at him. Eiji chalks it up to his sleepwalking habit, getting where he is, seeing as he’s no fresh new recollection of actually crossing the room. Blinking a few times, he looks around and tries to collect his thoughts. The room is strangely bigger than his and Ibe’s, and also a lot…lusher? There are shiny satin fabrics with splashes of rich reds and purples and the odd fine silver threads shaping combining patterns that decorate the curtains, carpets, ottomans and bedspread. It all seems so much more elaborate, not to mention comfortable— Ash’s bed is wide enough to fit four or five people in it, he’s sure. Totally unfair if you ask him, but at least the temperature here isn’t any better. No, there’s a very obvious reason why he finds Ash lying face up over the covers when he zeroes in on him. Posture relaxed enough; clothes, unlike his own, more than appropriate for these sticky LA nights: a dark tank top and matching boxers. It’s in his face, however, the dead giveaways: the shrewd edge to his gaze and his crystal-clear complexion. Maybe even his tamed hair, as well. Sleep’s hold could be gentle, but it always left some trace or other behind.

“Ash, you need to sleep.”

“That’s it?” He looks straight at him, eyes gleaming in the whiskey glow the lamps bathe the room in. There’s a certain liveliness to his tone Eiji finds himself spontaneously drawn to. “Look at you. A proud elder, laying down the law. Can’t have the kids being up past the bedtime, huh, Eiji?”

“ _Young_ adult” Eiji corrects, tight-lipped smile plastered on his face “is the word you’re looking for.”

“That’d be _two_ words. One, ‘young’,” Ash nods, holding a finger up. Eiji swats at it like a pesky fly. Ash holds it closer and counts on. “Two, ‘adult’.”

“Whatever.” Eiji mumbles, unable to care much about his age at all. Young, he feels distinctly so when Ash pokes his nose twice, once with each finger and then moves his hand away, to reunite his other that’s resting on his flat belly. Not for the first time, Eiji notes how lean he really is, quietly acknowledging the subtle raise and dip of his muscles, the ones a little fat could oh-so-easily hide.  

“It’s okay. Age makes it all the more difficult, doesn’t it?”

“No. It’s not-” Eiji stops, or rather, is stopped. He’s hit square by an armful of sheets and bedspread that weigh him down, effectively trapping him. Shocked, he’s quick to throw some messy punches blindly around him, huffing loudly and nursing indignation until he’s free from the dusty slippery fabrics. To some degree, the fire in him quiets when he’s met with Ash’s blank slant-eyed look.

He’s beaten to it. “What?”

“What?!”

On closer inspection, Eiji notices the corner of Ash’s lips are slightly upturned and that his tank top’s hiked up just so, exposing a clear strip of skin, simply the result of stretching in a lazy way to reach the end of the bed and kick the heap of bedding he now holds, Eiji knows. It makes him oddly flustered, though. Like someone should reach out, yank it down and feed that boy some fat. Stat.

“Gonna tuck me in, big bro?”

“Shut up.” Eiji chastises, his voice back to being raspy. He tosses the sheets on the floor in reply and dusts off his hands as loud as he can. Sitting himself fully on the bed, he folds his legs into a neat lotus when a fit of dry coughing he can’t all too well stifle into his elbow seizes him and disturbs any forthcoming calm. He tries to get the attention off him.  “This is- ‘snot helping, you- yOU’re too energy-in…energe-tic.”

“At least I’m not choking.” Ash shrugs, fixing him a look as he raises his eyebrows in that slow, deeply judgmental way of his. Eiji had been on the end of it many times, and while it doesn’t have him scurrying him away like Shorter says it does the other boys he’s sure left a little rattled, feeling inadequate and wanting to challenge Ash’s overall intensity with what little he might have. It’s a short-lived thing now, though, Ash relaxes and tilts his head, motioning to the bedside table to his right. Eiji eyes a water bottle there, half-full and cool enough to have the plastic exterior fog up slightly. There’s a worn brown leather wallet behind it, thin, and to the side, a short stack of blisters bound together with a rubber band. Eiji can see the top one has tiny green pills. There are three left out of ten.

“Melatonin.” Ash supplies. “It’s an over-the-counter sleep aid, used for jet lag mostly. You can take one if you want. Our bodies produce it so it’s pretty safe. Still, google the details first to be safe.”

Eiji traces the plastic bumps lightly with his finger, considering. “O- Oh.”

“It’s no side effects for me, other than souring my mood when it doesn’t work.”

Eiji is no stranger to the battery of sleep-inducing medicine available, but he doesn’t comment on it. Having had his rounds with the heavier, prescription-only stuff like most stressed-out athletes, OTC pills was comparatively child’s play.  “Did you take it tonight?”

“No.”

Eiji clears his throat, and decides to pass up as well. He reaches for the bottle and twists the cap open, bringing it to his lips and tipping his head slightly back as if to take a brief, calculated sip. His thirst getting the best of him, he ends up straight guzzling it and practically downing whole thing in a go. A strange thought crosses his mind, moments later, as he sets the emptied bottle aside, of how it _is_ Ash’s. He’d most likely drunk from it too, pressed his soft thin lips against the same spot his were. Eiji warms all over, abruptly reminded of their strictly-business kiss. The back of his neck prickles with what he’s sure is Ash’s curious stare. He feels so horribly childish— an _utter_ virgin.

Losing sleep over the feel of a boy’s tongue in his mouth might have been acceptable behavior at, like, thirteen.

Besides, Ash isn’t just any boy.

Shame blooms in him, just and appropriate, as he resumes his previous position and faces Ash. Well, his body does… mostly. His head stays lowered, his eyes closed and safely hidden under his fringe. _‘It’s not like that.’_ he tells himself, a coiling anxiety making his hands shake as he curls his hands into fists. A debilitating part of him still plays on his fears too freely, and it’s frustrating when he’s perfectly aware of it filling him up with guilt and blowing his self-doubts out of proportion. To drone it out, what wouldn’t he give for it?

Not anything, surely. Not him.

_‘It’s not like that because I care.’_

_‘I care for him.’_

 “Eiji?”

Jolting like he’s got whiplash, Eiji snaps his eyes open and lifts his head only to see the listless sleep-deprived serenity in Ash’s expression morphing into concern. It’s the opposite from what he wants, to disturb what little calm Ash can get. To be lumped together with all the other insidious things that make him worry himself sick, suffer, or be in pain. 

They hold each other’s gazes for a moment too long, Eiji thinks, because it’s there’s a fading shade of green behind his eyelids when he blinks. It soothes him into silence, then coaxes out the words that he tried to push down his throat with excuses of ‘too little’, ‘too simple’, exactly the ones he needed out the most.

“I’m sorry.”

Ash keeps his tone even. “What for?”

“For this,” Eiji moves a hand up, to press a finger on the growing furrow between blond brows.  “And this,” The back of that hand, now brushed over a delicate forefront, to ward off any future frown. “And, oh. Well, _that_.” A smile, sheepish. A tilt of the head towards an empty bottle. He’s not nearly done with his silent appreciation of Ash’s profile when he cuts his tracing of it short, dropping his hand back to rest in his own lap, cupped into his right one. “It wasn’t very considerate of me, was it?”

“I think you’re plenty considerate where it counts.” Ash sighs, digging his bare elbows the mattress to prop himself up a little, get his head on another pillow and his shoulders against the first. By Eiji’s standards, he’s still pretty much lying, still gracing him with that lovely perspective where he’s a smooth continuum Eiji doesn’t have to crane his neck to follow. “That is, if someone like me is fit to pass any judgment at all. To you.”

“Ash,” Eiji reprimands, his trivial thoughts brought to a halt. “Don’t say that.”

“What? That I’m a murderer? A whore? A worthless lowlife in the grand scheme of things?” Ash grumbles, looking pointedly at the ceiling. A few blinks, a long exhale, silence. More silence. Eiji keeps his mouth clamped shut, barely holding back on his wish to immediately reassure the other boy. It’s no use, anything he speaks, not until Ash’s very sensitive defense mechanisms ease somewhat, a thing he’s been told is pointless to hope for but one that Ash actually does frequently enough around him, when given the room to. Sure, Eiji can spot the thinly-veiled hurt as it is. He also knows Ash doesn’t exactly want him to see it yet. “If my life had turned out, to some degree, even remotely _normal…_ I sure as hell wouldn’t listen to someone like that, Eiji. ”

“You’re not your tormentors.”

“Yeah. Right.”

“You’re not.” He insists, leaning closer until he’s field of vision is almost all Ash. “When I look at you, the first thing that comes to mind is… blond.” From up close, it’s almost indistinguishable: his roots or a trick of the light? They blend together too well. And below, it follows. Eyebrows, lashes and the faintest traces of clear stubble. “Really. You’re so blond, Ash! I’d a hard time looking your way in the sunlight because it’s just too striking, too bright.”

Ash interrupts his study of the ceiling then, but the expression he regards him with remains the same analytic, point-blank intense one. A blush blooms high in Eiji’s cheeks, as furious as unbidden. “You can’t be serious.”

“Ah? I-” Eiji falters, sitting up again. “I am!”

“In Japan blonds aren’t common, nevermind natural blonds.” He rushes to explain the obvious. “Of course, you see them in American TV shows and, well, when you travel or meet foreigners. Australians are more redhead blond, I’d say? I didn’t get all the hype about it when I first visited Sidney and Melbourne, to be honest. But now seeing you I- I kind of get it, Ash. Finally.” Hands closing around ankles, he hugs his knees closer to his chest and rocks forward a little, flashing Ash a wide friendly smile. “The western obsession with blond hair. All those old poems and odes to fair hair, they were actually onto something. ”

“Sounding ever youthful, Eiji.” Ash pokes at him, a little above the wrist. It’s a brief touch that soon repeats, higher up,  before his hand comes level with his face. “Maybe a pipe would help you reminisce on your times?” A long finger cuts elegantly through warm air, drawing shapes.  “What about a monocle? Perhaps a nice custom-designed cane? ”

Eiji blows air at the offending hand, a silent cue to go away.

_Lean out of the window._

An afterthought more than a murmur, yet Ash hears. His puzzled look is not demanding but Eiji is feeling generous regardless, feeling like working with what’s been wrung out of him by the silly teasing and the random bout of nostalgia that hit him. Surely, it’s not his, he wasn’t even alive when the poem was first written but reading it never failed to imbue him with a sense of timeless calm. It’s a delicate thing, seeing beauty where others want only pain to be. It’s a delicate thing, too, reaching out to someone that your soul deeply hurts for.

“Goldenhair.”

With a drawn-out sigh, Eiji tentatively buries a hand in the crown of Ash’s head and ruffles soft fine hair. It’s unsurprisingly grounding, makes him remember Ash is there, alive and well. He doesn’t let go, opting instead to paw absently at glossy tresses as he gathers up the courage he needs to continue and get his point across.

He takes in a breath and lets his eyes wander, voice lilting calmly through the short poem.

_“I hear you singing._   
_A merry air._

_My book was closed,_  
 _I read no more,_  
 _Watching the fire dance_  
 _On the floor._  
  
_I have left my book,_  
 _I have left my room,_  
 _For I heard you singing_  
 _Through the gloom._  
  
_Singing and singing_  
 _A merry air,_  
 _Lean out of the window..._ ”

Eiji wiggles his eyebrows expectantly at Ash.

“Golden…hair?”

“Goldenhair.” He nods, affirming.

For a split second, Ash stares blankly at him then quickly tries for a scowl when, a helpless thing Eiji is sure, he flushes. A vibrant scarlet, selfish, foregoes the scale there usually is to such things and makes his whole face an outright explosion of color. Hair all fluffed up from how Eiji has combed it back and forth, it gives a comical image. A perfect shot, that it’d be, if he’d his camera nearby and Ash allowed it. Perhaps, though, it’s better this way. A faraway flicker of a moment in an otherwise dark empty night. They don’t exist like this to anyone else, not as long as there’s no proof. Memories may be easily influenced but they’re personal, safe.

Eiji doesn’t dare look away.

“It’s a poem by James Joyce.” He provides, slouching with the newfound coziness a winding conversation past midnight can carry along. “It’s been made into a song, too. My English teacher played Barrett’s version, made us discuss on it, the clear callback to Rapin- uh- something.”

“Ra-”

“Rasputi- no, wait!” Eiji inwardly curses his eagerness. He’s not a child prodigy by any stretch, but he’s a lot more lucid during daytime. Proud, at least he mumbles the recognition of his mistake.  “That’s some Russian leader. Was.”

“Rapunzel, you mean?”

“That’s the one, yes!” Eiji straightens up a fraction, equal parts jealous and marveled at how Ash can _know_ so much… even when the topic at hand is Disney princesses. (Which she is, right? Probably? Eiji isn’t sure, and his sister would most likely kill him for it.) “Anyway, it’s a dreamy poem. Kind of captures this feeling of a profound… brightness, one that runs deep and allows no influence to mar it. It shows freely in the hair, defiant.”

_Like you._

_You’ll find your way out, won’t you? You can’t be lost to it, Ash._

_I can’t bear to think otherwise._

“I wouldn’t look that much into it, but okay.”

“Fukami hodo shizukanari.” A wise proverb, but he keeps it secret. “I don’t think so.” 

“Huh?”

“Taiyō no ko, Taiyō no ko.” He pats Ash’s head obnoxiously, like a bothersome old lady would a child’s. He does drop his hand once he’s done, for good. Lest he become too much, be overwhelming. Swallowing around the growing lump in his throat, he attempts a toothy smile. “It’s a common Japanese nickname for blond kids.”

Not the whole of it, he doesn’t point out, just the last words.

“It roughly translates to ‘child of the sun’.” 

Ash flips on his side, arm wrapped around the pillow he props his head against. “Can I ask you a very serious question, Eiji?”

The lack of honorifics still grates on him a little when Ash is so upfront. “Sure.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“Why-” He blinks his eyes fast in confusion, “No, of course not!”

“You _were_ thirsty, after all.”

“I-” The idea he would want alcohol, of all times, when he’s somewhere unfamiliar and not potentially but confirmed dangerous? He’s not that stupid. “No. I don’t smell of alcohol, do I?”

“Hm.”

Ash takes in a breath, too far, too halfhearted while his gaze seems to be trying to slice him in two. “Guess you don’t.”

"I've been sleeping, Ash. Just that."

“ _That_ means your take on symbolism is a little biased, then.” He gives a deliberate wink, making a measuring gesture with his fingers before moving the hand slowly to the right, stopping only when can look straight through whatever little space separates his fingertips and into Eiji’s eyes. “This… times a million.”

Eiji shoos the hand away, feeling a distinct sense of déjà vu. They’re kind of stuck, aren’t they? Sometimes it feels like he’s lived all this, not just minutes ago but long before. A familiarity, fleeting and vague and immensely comforting. He stretches his arms up then settles them behind him, hands pushing on the bed to support him. Squinting his eyes at Ash, he suppresses a sudden yawn and chooses to entertain him. “Wouldn’t that be much, still.”

“Ever heard about Lucifer?”

“You’re no devil, Ash.” Eiji states, matter-of-factly.

“Been called it plenty.”

“Well, you aren’t.” Eiji decides, tone firm and edging on capricious… _childish_ capricious. It’s the late hour.  “Session’s over. End of case.”

They end up entering some sort of spur-of-the-moment staring contest, somehow. Competitiveness takes a hold of Eiji, a deep-rooted if outdated habit, so he can’t favor his tiredness and back down, especially considering how science has proved it time and time again: darker eyes are stronger eyes. What his own might lack in pretty they made up for in melanin, and wasn’t that a winner? In his sluggish mind, the connection was all too clear, so much so he even warns Ash about his imminent loss. It’ll backfire, sure, but it’s fun. Being haughty with what’s ultimately a gang leader, someone that has a gun somewhere close by and no intention of using it on him… not that, in theory, he couldn’t. He _could_ and it’s heady to think about it, gives Eiji this full-body rush as he draws closer and stares into tiny pinprick pupils, daring, because he’s not scared. He just isn’t. Fingers snap, a breath away from his temple, a dirty trick that disturbs the silence but not enough to make him lose his focus because he expected something of the sort. Naturally, he circumvents the hand and replies in kind, making faces and babbling nonsense in Japanese to Ash in varying volumes, hoping the foreign aspect to it might startle him (it doesn’t). Eiji barely notices the building heat when they end up bumping foreheads, no complains whatsoever about the slightly damp cold skin he presses his head against or at how their breath mingles, warm, the faintest sound of small puffs of air being breathed in and out and in again. Ash is squinting, a little more than himself, and so, _so_ close. Sweet, like victory, anytime now.

“It’s probably nearing 4:00 am,” Eiji whispers, “Even you need sleep, Taiyō no ko.” 

A little payback, he places thumbs over lids and presses softly down.

That simple, it’s all over. He wins.

“See you in a few hours, Ash.” He moves to get up, and if his lips brush against tresses and he finally closes his eyes then, just for a split second, before bolting off with sweaty hands so be it.

“Eiji?” Ash calls right when he’s all but a foot out of the door, heart thrumming wildly.

He doesn’t turn around, it’s too cramped there. Windowless and he needs fresh air. Space.

“Yes?” He squeaks out.

“Dye exists. You can use it, Eiji.”

“Good- Good _bye.“_

“Adulthood is what you make it!”

**Author's Note:**

> *filing nails* me, reinforcing the concept of Eiji having a big-ass gun kink ??!!?!?!  
> :)
> 
> The poem Eiji recites is "Lean Out Of The Window" by James Joyce, all credit for it goes to him. 
> 
> I googled these, feel free to point out any mistakes:  
> taiyō no ko = "child of the sun"  
> Fukai kawa wa shizuka ni nagareru= "a deep river flows quietly" (= still waters run deep.)
> 
> Thank you for reading !!  
> Comments / kudos make my day :D


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